In some of the most recent cars Variable Speed Transmission available, you can change gears by simply pressing a button, turning a knob or toggling a small joystick. Yet simultaneously, plenty of different automobiles still require drivers to make use of one foot for the clutch pedal and another for the gas, all while using one hand to control the gear-change lever through a distinct pattern of positions. And many other current vehicles don’t possess any traditional gears at all within their transmissions.

But regardless of whether a vehicle has a fancy automatic, an old-college manual or a modern-day consistently variable transmitting (CVT), each unit has to do the same job: help transmit the engine’s output to the generating wheels. It’s a complicated task that we’ll make an effort to make a little simpler today, starting with the basics about why a transmission is needed to begin with.
Let’s actually start with the normal internal combustion engine. As the fuel-air blend ignites in the cylinders, the pistons start moving up and down, and that motion is utilized to spin the car’s crankshaft. When the driver presses on the gas pedal, there’s more fuel to burn off in the cylinders and the whole process moves faster and faster.

What the transmission does is change the ratio between how fast the engine is spinning and how fast the driving wheels are moving. A lower gear means optimum overall performance with the tires moving slower compared to the engine, while with an increased gear, optimum performance includes the wheels moving quicker.
With a manual transmission, gear shifting is handled by the driver with a gear selector. Many of today’s cars have five or six forward gears, but you’ll discover older models with from three to six forwards gears offered.

A clutch is utilized to transmit torque from a car’s engine to its manual transmitting. The many gears in a manual tranny allow the car to travel at different speeds. Bigger gears offer lots of torque but lower speeds, while smaller gears deliver less torque and invite the car travel more quickly.